


100 Prompt Challenge

by Aansero



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Multi, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:57:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6688255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aansero/pseuds/Aansero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of one shots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lalli, Emil

Lalli opened his eyes to the sound of someone blundering through the undergrowth. The hair on his neck pricked. Someone in his area again – that gods dammed foreign mage–

Lalli rolled over, getting to his feet in one smooth motion, hands up and the words of a runo forming on his tongue. He stopped short when Emil staggered into view, knee deep in mud, attempting and failing to find solid ground. Emil's arms up to his elbows were dripping wet, his face smeared with dirt.

Oh. How...? Could the foreign mage have let him through? A few seconds passed until Emil, still fighting onwards through the mud, caught sight of Lalli. Emil came to a stop, his face arranging itself for a complex sort of emotion: eyes wide, mouth open slightly. Then, as he realised he was sinking into the mud, he lurched forward again. 'Lalli!' he said. His mouth rearranged itself into a grin. 'Thank goodness you're okay! I've been so worried about you. I swear it's not okay to sleep that long but no one else even seems to care. I mean, what am I even saying. This is obviously a dream.'

Clambering up onto the boards Emil wobbled slightly as he walked up to Lalli. 'This is kind of a strange dream though. I don't usually know I'm asleep. Good though. Um. A bit weird.'

It was at once entirely natural and unnatural to hear Emil speak and understand what he said. Similarly, less easy to explain, more uncomfortable, the urge to both hear Emil speak and to shut him up. Emil looked down from Lalli's eyes, flushed, and started to fidget with his wet sleeves.

'You're in my area,' Lalli said, slightly more accusatory than he'd meant to, but then he'd meant to say something other than that inexplicably inane statement to begin with. Emil was staring at him with pale eyes, and Lalli felt a flush of something crawl down his neck. He didn't really want Emil to go. Even if he didn't want Emil to speak, he didn't want him to go. This was nothing at all like the time that other mage broke in. 'How'd you get here?' Again, more aggressive than he actually felt. Emil just gaped at him.

Lalli flopped down, looking away for a moment. He patted next to himself.

'Oh!' Emil said, startling a little like he'd been flicked on the nose. 'I can understand you! That's... really weird. Not that I shouldn't be able to, since it's my dream and all.' He laughed, an easy emotion: honestly, unguardedly delighted. 'I can't even tell what language you're speaking.'

Huffing, Lalli patted the board again. He felt oddly self conscious, and it wasn't a feeling he'd had much experience in. It made him discomfited. 'You left your dream,' he said. 'You came over to mine. That's why we can understand each other.'

'Right.' Emil didn't look convinced. He also didn't look convinced about stepping over the water onto the centre board where Lalli sat. 'Uh, you know what, I'll probably just tip that over. I can sit here.'

He sat down on one of the boards circling the pool, hesitating before letting his legs dangle into the water. Clouds of brown and green washed off as he kicked them gently. 'Is this what it's like in Finland? Tuuri said you live on an island – no – wait.'

Emil got up onto his knees, leaning towards Lalli. Water dripped everywhere. 'If we can speak to each other now, we should introduce ourselves! We never got to do it before, and I just thought. Uh. I mean, I was waiting until I learnt some Finnish but that was taking ages, and...'

A pause, then Emil stuck out his hand. 'I'm Emil Västerström. It's good to meet you!'

Was this normal in Sweden? Or was it just something Emil did?

Mirroring Emil's motion, Lalli knelt and grasped Emil's hand. He'd seen handshakes and very occasionally had them done to him, but the exact nature of the action still eluded him. 'Lalli Hotakainen,' he said. His own name sounded odd. 'From Saimaa. It's good to meet you.'

Emil grinned and moved their hands up and down briskly. Then he let go and sat back down. 'It's kind of stupid, introducing ourselves after we've known each other for – how long, now? But mostly I just wanted to hear you talk again. Since it's a dream I can admit that kind of thing, right?'

Leaning forward, Lalli wiped the worst of dirt off Emil's cheek, then flopped back down. Emil stopped speaking, perhaps waiting for some sort of cue. There were a few things Lalli wanted to say – how was Tuuri? How did Emil get here to begin with? And maybe try to convince Emil that they really were talking and he wasn't a figment of Emil's dream – he'd had Tuuri explain how non-mages dream, and it was _weird_ – but he held his tongue. The fear that Emil might say something stupid, something annoying, the sort of thing that the people Lalli didn't like would say, wavered at the back of his mind. Emil hadn't yet, and what he had said felt entirely fitting with the garbled nonsense he'd say in waking life, in that foreign language of his. Lalli didn't think he would say something bad. But still.

The water lapped the boards as Emil shifted. 'Um. So,' Emil said, and laughed in a series of little huffs, looking down at his hands. He didn't say anything else, but he was smiling as he glanced up at Lalli. Lalli huffed back. He lay down, eyes still on Emil, stretched then curled up to get comfortable.


	2. Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reynir

There was a lot to hate about the Silent World, beyond the obvious.

At night Reynir lay bundled up and overheating, tired in an unpleasant, achy sort of way. The mattress was thinner than the one he had at home, and uncomfortable, and at home he had a room to himself twice the size of this space he shared with five other people. At home he had both better food and lots more exercise. And, of course, at home he had his parents.

His parents who'd lied to him. Not even by omission – straight to his face, countless times, his whole life.

It didn't tend to bother him during the day, now he was friends with everyone and had some things to be doing, as well as a kitten to look after. But sometimes in the night-time he couldn't sleep, horror like ground frost creeping in from the outside, waking all sorts of fears he'd never had before, even as a child. Fear of the dark doorway and what would be standing there if he looked. Fear of what crawled in the space between the tank floor and the ground below. Fear of opening his eyes and realising that everyone were gone, or dead, or worse.

Mikkel said this was normal. Mikkel said a lot of things, but Reynir thought he was being honest about this one.

What then could he distract himself with, except memories of his parents and home? Only now these things held a bad taste, an off feeling, a veneer of something wrong. Like someone had spilt rancid oil then touched everything, leaving smeared, smelly fingerprints on all the clean surfaces.

His parents had done it because they loved him, of course. Reynir knew that. He was naive and gullible and not very educated, but he wasn't stupid. Or not that stupid, anyway. They loved him, and he loved them, but they'd still lied to him. For his own good? Or for theirs?

How much of the resentment and hurt and awful, aching sadness was the same as the horror, permeating in from the soaked world outside, and how much was his own?

Then, every night, he fell asleep and woke in the morning. The sun rose. His friends remained. The horror diminished and he could smile again.

Sometimes as he sat and watched Mikkel cook or Tuuri read and wondered where he'd be now if his parents had told him the truth from the start. Perhaps it was only his ignorance showing but he could never think of anywhere convincing. He would have to learn a new language if he wanted to work in another country. Perhaps on a vegetable farm in Denmark, or a marketplace. He'd already learnt his lesson with trade ships. His siblings' stories were threadbare. Nowhere felt very real in his imagination any more. Not like this did, here in the Silent World.

They sat together to eat breakfast. The ruins of the ancient city towered up above them all, cast brilliant in the morning sun. Designs and devices beyond comprehension. Birds overhead. Sigrun was laughing, the noise like a big dog barking, and she wasn't slapping her thighs but Reynir thought that she really ought to. Her kind of laughter was the kind where people slapped their thighs, doubling over to do so if they weren't sitting down. Emil and Tuuri were also laughing, a beautiful background accompaniment.

It cleared the air, Sigrun's laughter. In the night-time it seemed doubtless that he'd never see his parents again – that he'd die out here, or worse. But under the bright morning sun and Sigrun's laughter he felt that he would see them again for sure.

In the meantime he would do his best to help his friends here and have the adventure he'd wanted in the first place. The stories he'd tell when he returned! And even if his parents had lied to him, well, they still loved him, and he was here now.


End file.
